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From the highly acclaimed author of Atlas of Unknowns (“Dazzling . . . One of the most exciting debut novels since Zadie Smith’s White Teeth”—San Francisco Chronicle; “An astonishment of a debut”—Junot Díaz), a bravura collection of short stories set in locales as varied as London, Sierra Leone, and the American Midwest that captures the yearning and dislocation of young men and women around the world. In “Lion and Panther in London,” a turn-of-the-century Indian wrestler arrives in London desperate to prove himself champion of the world, only to find the city mysteriously absent of challengers. In “Light & Luminous,” a gifted dance instructor falls victim to her own vanity when a student competition allows her a final encore. In “The Scriptological Review: A Last Letter from the Editor,” a young man obsessively studies his father’s handwriting in the hope of making sense of his death. And in the marvelous “What to Do with Henry,” a white woman from Ohio takes in the illegitimate child her husband left behind in Sierra Leone, as well as an orphaned chimpanzee who comes to anchor this strange new family. With exuberance and compassion, Tania James once again draws us into the lives of damaged, driven, and beautifully complicated characters who quietly strive for human connection.

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Tania James was raised in Louisville, Kentucky after a brief stint in Chicago from ages 0 to 4. She graduated from Harvard University with a degree in filmmaking and received an MFA from Columbia’s School of the Arts. Her debut novel Atlas of Unknowns was published by Knopf in 2009, and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, an Indie Next Notable, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and a Best Book of 2009 for The San Francisco Chronicle and NPR. Atlas was also shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian literature. Her short stories have appeared in a number of journals, including Boston Review, Granta, Guernica, Kenyon Review, One Story, Orion, and A Public Space. She has also written for the New York Times, Courier Journal, and Elle India. The title story of her collection was a finalist for Best American Short Stories 2008 and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Tania is the recipient of fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. In 2011-2012, she was a Fulbright fellow to India living in New Delhi. She lives in Washington D.C.